I am very dubious about whether the “middle group” should be cast as antisemitic, and certainly not as “rampantly” antisemitic.
I think it’s more like Chris Rock says: “Black people don’t hate Jewish people. Black people hate WHITE people.”
I’m not a big Baron Cohen fan, but I’m wondering what kind of idiot you would have to be to expect his characters to be positive portrayals of anybody. He’s a comedian, and specifically an over-the-top kind. He’s not out to promote tolerance or whatever, he gets comedy out of situations by making people uncomfortable or throwing them off. Why would he suddenly do something different?
Being put off by the gay stereotyping is basically getting whooshed. Bruno is SUPPOSED to be a stereotype, not an accurate portrayal of a gay man. The comic premise is not about how people respond to gay people, but how people respond to a ridiculously unrealistic parody of gay stereotypes.
There’s a bit of a hit and miss quality to SBH’s approach. Sometimes it’s hilarious, sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes he exposes shocking bigotry (“Throw the Jew Down the Well” was Cohen at his best – funny, unforced and genuine in what it exposed). Sometimes he he pushes for expected reactions that don’t materialize (the driving instructor in Borat, for example never took any bait. The dinner party scene was uncomfortable, but did not really expose any bigotry in the hosts).
I also think that Bruno is his 3rd funniest character, and the formula is probably wearing out at this point, but I’ll still see the movie. In my opinion, his best character by far is Ali G, but that character is probably too well-known to get any unscripted milage from anymore. I know he did an Ali G movie afew years ago, but it didn’t use the Borat/Bruno formula, it was just a conventional, dumb, scripted comedy which really missed the whole point about what makes the character funny. The best part of Da Ali G show was Ali G interviewing politicians.
Apparently there is some disagreement in the community. Bruno is on the cover of OUT magazine:
Yep. It’s the same old tribal in-group out-group mentality. Now he is making fun of The Wrong People.
Interesting Slate Article re the debate. It’s take is 180 degrees from that of the Salon Article.
It looks amusing but it takes a lot of fun out of it when I’m left trying to guess what was staged and/or heavily edited.
The shock and awe looses it’s punch when the victims are in on the show.
But he made up for all that by asking the Chevy dealer “What car you buy to get kind of woman who shave … down there?” and the guy immediately said “That would be the Corvette.” 
I said when I saw it and still believe that the scenes in BORAT when he interacts with “regular people” were about as funny as a colonectomy. Cohen has great talent, but I can’t stand seeing people who’ve done him no harm
1- Made that uncomfortable for entertainment value
2- Left to the mercy of Cohen’s editing
3- Lied to that they’re appearing in a documentary
That said, when I read this from the Salon article
I wondered “are there two movies called Borat? Because I don’t believe I saw the one he’s talking about.”
As somebody who’s only a fan of Cohen when he’s either scripted or else interacting with someone who has a forum to shoot back, I think the author of this article comes across as a whiney little bitch who thinks it’s hysterical when Cohen perpetuates stereotypes and gets ‘results’ that fit his own notions (that Americans are ignorant and antiSemitic, etc.) but decides the joke’s not funny when the target is closer to home.
Of course I haven’t seen the movie and don’t intend to, at least not until its Netflixable.
I never said the black guys Borat encountered were antisemitic- what I DID say was that it’s interesting Cohen never even attempted to find out.
Evidence shows that black Americans are FAR more likely to be virulently antisemtitic than whites. So, when Cohen met up with some young black guys, did he attempt to expose their inner thoughts and (possible) prejudices? No… he just did a Steve Martin/Dan Aykroyd “Wild and Crazy Guy” routine, in which the joke was on the silly white guy trying to act black.
Why didn’t Cohen try to find out what THOSE guys thought of Jews? Hmm?
I thought Borat was hilarious, but I think that Sasha Baron Cohen is a master bullshit artist. His humor for the most part is on the level of Oww My Balls. There is nothing wrong with that, I thought Jackass was funny too. At least Johnny Knoxville doesn’t try to pass off Steve-O stapling his sack to his leg as an symbol of suburban depression. The funniest part of Borat was when he had some dude’s nut sack draped across his nose.
And count me as surprised at all the people who were shocked at what they saw. Drunk College Frat boys tell a guy with a broken heart that all women are good for nothing bitches. What’s shocking about that? If he had went on a sorority bus as a woman with a broken heart they would have been telling him all men are assholes.
He didn’t attempt to find out with most of the white people either.
Nothing was shocking about that. It was the racist crap they were spewing that got people’s attention.
It’s been a while since I watched it so maybe I filtered that part out. The only racist person I remember was the old man. I wasn’t super shocked at that one either. Finding a racist old man isn’t hard, pretty much everyone has a grandpa or uncle who is fond of staying things that make you wince. I would be more shocked and saddened by children who were saying crap like that. It would have been an effective scene if he could have found a sweet little child to drop an N bomb with a proud daddy standing nearby.
I was thinking about seeing Bruno but I think I’m gonna wait until it comes out on DVD. Borat was a movie about a straight guy and it had a lot off balls and man butt, I can’t imagine what Bruno has. I did read online that he tried to do some bleaching of his ass for the movie and ended up in the hospital. That is dedication.
I also remember some criticizing the dinner party scene because the people there weren’t so much racist as they were uncomfortable by Borat being incredibly rude and bringing a tastelessly dressed prostitute.
The movie also didn’t accuse those people of being racist. I don’t think the scene worked particularly well, but I also don’t think the people were made to look bad. The part where he returned from the bathroom with a bag of shit was funny only because it was so horrifically uncomfortable, but I think the people came off looking pretty decent in their responses to him.
The only people who came off looking bad were those who did it all by themselves, without any manipulation from Borat. He didn’t tell those fratboys what to say.
I’ll just say that my wife saw the movie and HATED it.
Maybe he did, and they didn’t take the bait, so it got left on the editing room floor. Remember, Cohen is in charge of what we see, and he’s only going to put in stuff that’s funny (he seems to have no real interest in touching moments of racial harmony). Him dancing poorly was funny; thus it gets put in the film.
I thoroughly enjoyed Borat, but don’t think I’ll catch Bruno in the theatres. It seems like it’ll be relying much more on straight-up awkward situation humor, which I don’t like as much. (I usually skip over the dinner-party scene when I watch Borat on DVD, for the same reason.)
Back on the tv show, he asked some nutjob preacher if it was “okay to be fabulous”, and the guy said no. :D:D:D I still can’t get over that one.
What Diogenes said. Spot on.